Religion Dispatches
…f 12. Femicide is a global problem and Latin America one of the hot spots. Between 1987 and 1997 192 women were murdered in Ciudad Juarez and another 138 in Tijuana, Mexico. With support from the Ford Foundation, a leader in women’s rights funding, a regional network of women’s groups has formed to address the problem which continues unabated with little action by the police and silence from the church. No threats of excommunication are made to di…
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…to marriages that involved a woman under age 45, suggesting that marriage between such “undesirables” was fine as long as the couple was unable to reproduce. After the 1920s, governments began to retreat from the non-traditional business of determining who was fit to marry or to reproduce. Statutes that denied marriage to epileptics or people with low IQs were gradually repealed. In the 1960s, the Supreme Court invalidated laws against interracia…
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…ct and modest dress code in public, and has zero-tolerance for dissident’s freedom of expression – presents a surprisingly lenient attitude on trans issues. On the surface, the Iranian government seems supportive of the trans community. Official reports reveal that gender confirmation surgery for trans individuals is subsidized by the state. Trans activists are also legally allowed to organize and register an advocacy group and benefit from public…
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…st cultures. Buddhism absorbed Chinese religion when it spread to China, Tibetan religion in Tibet, and so on. But mindfulness—what we think of as “meditation,” as opposed to prayer or ceremonial observance, for example—does have deep roots in the tradition. The Pali word sati, which can be translated as mindfulness, is frequently used in Buddhist scripture. (The noun comes from the verb sarati, meaning “to remember,” and alternative translations…
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…conservatives seek to devalue empathy—making it seem soft, sensitive, and freewheeling. Definitions of empathy by leading psychological scholars, on the other hand, identify empathy as an ability to interpret the experience of another person; to walk in someone else’s shoes. This is not the same as sympathy, pity, or over-identifying with the other person. It is more than ironic that the discussion of empathy occurs at a time when Obama has chose…
Read More…ever, increased in intensity with the latest controversy in a country torn between conservative mores and proximity to the West.” India: Actress discusses role as lesbian in film banned in India Preeti Gupta, a popular TV and theater actor, plays a lesbian girl Leela in Unfreedom, a movie released in the U.S. in May but banned in India. The film, by US-based Raj Amit Jumar, is set in New York and Delhi. The Hindu published an article and interview…
Read More…m often drags religion into progressive causes. Again, most Christians are better than Christianity. Liberal believers might need to argue over which party a “true” Christian would support, but politicians do not need to make these arguments. Which brings us back to the 2020 election. Coons suggested that the Democrats inject more religion into their party. Buttigieg seems to agree and is using it as a cudgel against Republicans. A better suggesti…
Read More…port was released, Monk openly appeared (in possible violation of military code) at the Values Voters Summit for a panel. The Liberty Institute’s Jeff Mateer put his hand on Monk’s shoulder and praised him, saying, “We’ve gotten phone calls from military members who are undergoing discrimination…and with the exception of him, those folks that have called us have all wanted to remain anonymous. Sergeant Monk, to his credit, is willing to stand up.”…
Read More…local concern that he wasn’t going to comment on, when he otherwise has (albeit in a perfunctory way) called for the promotion of women’s rights in other parts of the Middle East? And since Obama was promoting the rights and freedom of religious minorities last night, wouldn’t this case fall under his concern? There are good religion questions. They just don’t get asked….
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…endorsed the message of the Believe Out Loud video. Sojourners thought it better to promote the video that way—”in an editorial context.” King’s original post has a pretty active comments section—much of it critical of Sojourners, some supportive. Although criticism—on or off its own pages—doesn’t appear to be pushing the group toward any capitulation, or, as McLaren makes plain, towards any activism on LGBT rights. Mark Silk notes that while Soj…
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